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I temporarily fixed a family member’s hard drive so I could get the data off of it onto my computer. As I was transferring over the downloads, I had a windows defender message come up detecting a Trojan. I deleted the quarantined files in windows defender. Then, windows explorer couldn’t transfer two of the files over from the downloads (I am assuming those files had a Trojan virus, or maybe they had been deleted from windows defender). I decided to skip them, and then the files transferred over to my Documents.

After thinking more about the trojan, I delete all of the files that I had transferred from the hard drive, and unplugged the hard drive.

  1. Is there any chance that I have a Trojan? First of all, I never opened any of the files. But could I still have it regardless?

  2. Also, if I run a windows defender scan (or any other free anti-virus per reccomenation), and nothing shows up, is there nothing to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

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    I would still run malwarebytes anti-malware and a full deep Avast free edition (or premium preferably) scan on there.
    – spikey_richie
    Commented Aug 20, 2019 at 15:22
  • If all you did was copy the files, and did not open or view them, you're probably safe, but as @spikey_richie states, a single scan by antimalware can't hurt. Do not set the additional software to scan all the time, alongside Defender, as that slows the system.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Aug 20, 2019 at 16:09

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Is there any chance that I have a Trojan? First of all, I never opened any of the files. But could I still have it regardless?

This is extremely unlikely. No virus that I know of can be installed by the simple presence of a file on the computer, unless it replaces a Windows file, which isn't your case.

The USB itself could be infected with an autorun.inf auto-infection virus, but Windows 10 by default disables this infection vector, unless you have manually enabled it. You may easily have a look at the root folder of the USB to see if that file is present (don't open it in any way, of course).

Also, if I run a windows defender scan (or any other free anti-virus per recommendation), and nothing shows up, is there nothing to worry about?

I wish things were that simple, but the fact that the antivirus found nothing only means that it found nothing. To feel safer, you should run a deep scan by Defender (you did) and a couple of other well-known antivirus products. Malwarebytes is recommended, and other products may have a "Home call" page for scanning without local installation.

Use only well-known antiviruses and be alert for spoofed website names (different by one character only from the real ones).

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